


at least I'm not alone

by knaveofmogadore



Series: Exploring Luke: Elysium character profiles [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Elysium, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, kind of character death but they're already dead so...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knaveofmogadore/pseuds/knaveofmogadore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death was hard. Waiting was hard. It just makes everything a little bit easier if there's someone with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	at least I'm not alone

**Author's Note:**

> Excerpts from a journal luke kept in Elysium. No dates because who says the dead need time? Lukethan if you squint really really hard.

The grass rippled with rainbows, the houses crowded together like we were in London, and the sky above, if you could call it that, was a bright purple, not like the darkness surrounding most of this place. If this was paradise, it seemed like a pretty boring place. Only my third day in and I'm already bored. 

 

Walking around in the field outside of town, that's just something that i do. It distracts me from the fact that i got something that i didn't deserve. 'Playing favorites' Nakamura would have told me. 'Unfair' was another one of his favorite words.  
The grass ripples and moves in a way that makes it seem alive, which by default would make it the most alive thing in this little corner of the underworld. As stupid as it may seem, i miss the world i tried to destroy. I miss the sun and the rain and people being able to just scream. This place, it's so quiet all the time. I don't think there's ever been a moment when i couldn't hear my own breathing. I miss the noise almost as much as i miss the people. 

 

I found Ethan today. I was walking in the fields, avoiding everyone. They don't ever say it, not directly, but we all know what they're thinking. I don't think i belong here either, but Ethan, oh Ethan, he said i did. He said i belonged here as much as anyone, but i don't think thats true. I mean, as a son of nemesis and all I'm sure he'd know but...I'm just not sure. I don't think I've been sure about anything since I, well, you know. There's another thing we never say here. No ones uttered the word death in all these months, not once not ever. It's like a taboo thing. 

 

I found Ethan crying today. I held him for a while, it seemed to calm him down. Another thing to add to my growing list of things I miss: human contact. It's not that people don't touch here, just that people don't touch me. I'm not offended, or suprised. What suprised me was Ethan, the kid i got killed, curling up in my lap and crying on my chest.  
He's the most real thing here. Not saying that the others aren't real, of course. It's just that he shows emotion in a way like life. Gods that made me sound like an apollo kid, I'm glad no one cares enough to read this. I might end up a poet by the end of my eternity.

 

Ethan and i have decided to share a house. Human companionships added to my ever growing list, but i don't think it'll be on there for long. Sometimes it only takes one person to make.you feel like your world's complete. Gods I really am turning into a sap. If Nakamura ever read this he'd laugh me back out to the field. 

 

A kid asked me once, a really long time ago, if the dead dreamed. He was a tiny thing, went into the Aphrodite cabin. I think his name was Mitchell, but memories get so fuzzy here sometimes. I told him that i didn't know, but I'd be sure to ask a ghost if i ever saw one. Funny thing is, I'm as much of a ghost as anyone else here, and I'm still not sure whether i could answer his question or not. Its complicated to explain in words, and it's not exactly something you can draw.  
The dead don't sleep, there's no need, no feeling for it anymore. You can close your eyes all you want, but there's no way you'll get any actual sleep. Believe me, we all tried at first. Its like not saying the d word, its just somthing that's there when you get here.  
What does happen is daydreams, vivid, full color visions of life happening, but they're not really dreams. Borrowed memories drifting up from the lethe when they refuse to be washed away. Most of them aren't ours, not that it would matter if they were. Life is always just as haunting all the same.

 

Ethan keeps touching me, he does it all the time. Little touches on the arms, flicking my hair, he grabbed my hand once. I asked him yesterday why he did it, expecting him to just miss contact as mich as I did. What he said was something that will stick with me even if i choose rebirth.  
He said "i keep thinking that they'll change their minds, that they'll take you and put you in the fields of punishment and I'd be left here all alone. I just need to know that you're really real " 

 

I've spent the last while in bed, just curling up under the covers. Nakamura came in here with me for a little while. Just laying next to someone, it makes me feel a little less like a memory and more like the real thing.

 

I try to avoid most people i knew. Not out of fear, or guilt, well kind of out of guilt, but mostly because it just nakes this whole thing harder. I dragged them down with me just a little too soon and seeing them just makes this unlike the dream i can sometimes fool myself into thinking it is. It's easy if i try, its not hard to bend this place into what you want to see if you practice with it enough. 

 

Someone appeared for a brief second before vanishing. Apparently that happens sometimes, but just for a second, a small second, fear gripped my heart. Because it was someone i knew, i know it was no matter what anyone tells me, and it's too soon. Its too soon to be seeing her face here just yet, especially not with that expression on her face. I don't think I'd ever seen Annabeth so sad or desperate in my life, and i never want to see it again.

 

I think Ethan is jealous of Thalia? I mean i don't know why, she's not even here, plus he just...clicks better, i guess?  
But he's jealous, and i can at least pinpoint when it started.  
I contacted her in her dreams, spotty connection and all. I was glad to see her, so very glad because she was alive and one of the few things i didn't royally fuck up. Hell I'll tell the truth she was, but she wasn't the worst thing. She told me everything that had happened, why Annabeth was so upset. I could at least tell her that percy didn't show up here, but that's the only thing I've heard.  
Ethan says we talked for a really long time.  
I just hope he starts talking to me again soon, i miss his voice.

 

We finally had a nice, long conversation about our lives, Ethan and I. Full disclosure, right down to all our regrets, our grievances and our broken hearts. Does death make one sappy? The living will never know. The silence is hard, but anything is easier to bear when you have someone beside you. Especially if they need you as much as you need them.


End file.
